Vaccinations are beginning to lift some of the dark clouds that have been hanging over many households for the past year, but the conditions that put education out of reach for many community-college students persist. Many are still out of work, underemployed, or struggling to pay bills. 

There’s only so much community-college administrators can do against these forces, but many are doing whatever they can to help and reconnect with students. That includes meeting their material needs by providing laptops and hotspots, as well as food and other necessities.

Photo: Rick Bowmer

A year into the pandemic, there are signs that the American economy is stirring back to life, with a falling unemployment rate and a growing number of people back at work. Even mothers—who left their jobs in droves in the last year in large part because of increased caregiving duties—are slowly re-entering the workforce.

But young Americans—particularly women ages 16 to 24—are living an altogether different reality. They face higher rates of unemployment than older adults, with many thousands, possibly even millions, postponing their future goals. For these women, the caregiving crisis may be a major reason they have put on hold their education or careers.

In theory, it sounds like a problem with a clear solution: Colleges and universities use money provided by the CARES Act to quickly fund emergency grant requests before students go hungry, fall behind on rent, or miss a utility payment. But in reality, the situation has exposed an administrative bottleneck at campuses across the country.

A start-up company called Edquity wants to remove those bottlenecks. Using a proprietary algorithm, it can decide for colleges which students get aid—fast. The company's app essentially takes over the entire emergency aid application, decision-making, and disbursement process.